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League Testifies at City CouncilSTATEMENT ON BILL 13, FD-1, ON THE WAIKIKI MORATORIUM, BEFORE THE CITY COUNCIL ZONING COMMITTEE, APRIL 2, 1991
On February 27 we testified before the City Council in favor of Bill 13 and made some suggestions for modifications to meet the objections made by its opponents. On March 6 we testified at the Jefferson School Hearing in favor of the current proposed FD-1, which incorporated a number of such changes. We continue to think a moratorium i s necessary if any Master Plan is to have meaning. If massive projects such as now being planned receive building permits before the DP and zoning amendments implementing it are in place, it may be very difficult if not impossible to realize it. The amended bill is modest, would apply the brakes for considerably less than a year, would allow alterations, renovations or remodeling to proceed, and would not interfere with permits already granted. The Waikiki Special Design District, enacted after five years of effort, contained greatly improved zoning regulations decreasing formerly permitted densities and requiring increased open space on building lots. It was, however, at best only a zoning mechanism and not a positive, creative development plan for Waikiki's future. It has obviously not resulted in the kind of resort area people from all over the world dream of when they choose to come here. They expect ocean views and tropical foliage, not a forest of concrete monsters. Their disenchantment was recently expressed by Japanese officials explaining why other destinations are increasingly being preferred by their nationals, and by others in the United States. In a syndicated consumer column in the San Jose Mercury News by Journalist Peter Greenberg called "These are the places you can skip in 1990", he finds that Hawaii is overbuilt and Waikiki has long been over crowded and suggests that the state bird be renamed the building crane. It is time to stop the destruction of Waikiki and begin the rejuvenation.
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